School of Military Engineering, Chatham

Royal School of Military Engineering
Badge of the Royal Engineers
Active	1812 – Present
Country	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Type	Training
Role	Engineer Training
Part of	Army Recruiting and Training Division
Garrison/HQ	Chatham, Kent 51°23′34″N 0°32′07″E / 51.3928°N 0.5352°E / 51.3928; 0.5352Coordinates: 51°23′34″N 0°32′07″E / 51.3928°N 0.5352°E / 51.3928; 0.5352
Commanders
Current commander	Brigadier MTG Bazeley (Late RE)

The Royal School of Military Engineering (RSME) Group provides a wide range of training not only in all the engineering disciplines that are fundamental to the Royal Engineers, but also Military Working Animals; their handlers and maintainers, Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Military Musicians. The scope of training delivered by the RSME Group is vast ranging from combat engineers to Army musicians, chartered engineers to veterinary technicians and bomb disposal operators to heavy plant operators.

The Peninsular War (1808–14) revealed deficiencies in the training and knowledge of officers and men in the conduct of siege operations and bridging. During this war low ranking Royal Engineers officers carried out large scale operations. They had under their command working parties of two or three battalions of infantry, two or three thousand men, who knew nothing in the art of siegeworks. Royal Engineers officers had to demonstrate the simplest tasks to the soldiers often while under enemy fire. Several officers were lost and could not be replaced and a better system of training for siege operations was required. The need for a school was highlighted by problems experienced during the Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo In January 1812 and the Siege of Badajoz in March 1812.

On 23 April 1812 an establishment was authorised, by Royal Warrant, to teach "Sapping, Mining, and other Military Fieldwork's" to the junior officers of the Corps of Royal Engineers and the Corps of Royal Military Artificers, Sappers and Miners.

Captain Charles Pasley who had been pressing for such an establishment since 1809 was selected as the first Director with the rank of major. The location chosen was Chatham which was, at that time, a strongly fortified naval town. The town was surrounded by batteries, bastions and ditches designed to be defended by 7000 men and so provided excellent areas for training in siege operations. (Records show that there had been a military base on the high ground above Chatham built to defend Chatham Dockyard since at least 1708.) Pasley received his orders to move from Plymouth on 2 May 1812 and ten days later he was in Chatham.

In 1815 Pasley recommended that the Royal Sappers and Miners Training Depot at Woolwich be closed, to concentrate all training at Chatham. But that was not achieved until 1850 when the training Depot was moved to Brompton Barracks, Chatham. The move was made possible by the completion of North Kent Railway, which facilitated a fast transport link into London. The Headquarters of the Royal Engineers, also based in Woolwich, was not moved to Chatham until 1857.